


Hollyhocks

by pseudofaux



Category: Samurai Love Ballad: PARTY
Genre: F/M, Flowers, Ieyasu is sooooooo sneaky, double narrator word score, fleurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 21:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13326960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudofaux/pseuds/pseudofaux
Summary: Ieyasu is totally ignoring what's going on.





	Hollyhocks

**Author's Note:**

> A request from nightingaledarling on tumblr: "Could I ask for Ieyasu fluffytimes?"
> 
> TALL ORDER with lil' ramenboof pricklecurls! But I really really love him and I tried. I could not have written this without super enjoying [Lady Boss](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13287726) by RubyLeeRay, which I strongly encourage you to go enjoy as well because DAMN. Ruby makes these characters feel so real, and even though Ieyasu is my favorite I did not even try to write him in any happy way until I read her take on him. Gold standard.

When he gave her garden space with a disinterested wave and a roll of his eyes, she thought for a few days on what to do with it. When she decided, she was very excited to share her plans with him.

“Hollyhocks,” she said, happily and firmly, sitting next to him in his room that night. Books on their laps, a small tray of treats in front of them.

He looked at her with a raised brow.

“That’s what I’ll plant,” she clarified.

He said nothing. She put her hand on his and he still said nothing. He did not move away, either.

* * *

_When she obtained the seeds, she told the kitchen staff, she told Tadatsugu, she told Toramatsu—of course she told Toramatsu, he just **had** to be told everything or his puppy dog eyes would leak, wouldn’t they. The soulful idiot. _

_She did not tell Ieyasu himself until they were safe in his rooms for their shared time in the evening._

_And he was not happy she was only telling him now, so he didn’t comment when she did. He made sure to sneer. But she only smiled._

_He couldn’t bear to look at it, so he scowled at his book instead._

* * *

“Ieyasu-sama?” she asked outside his door. “Are you here? May I please come in?”

“Nothing ventured nothing gained,” he muttered.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from giggling. Now that she could tell (sometimes, she thought, she hoped) when he was being this way, it was difficult to keep a straight face about it.

She entered, and slid the door closed behind her.

“I’ve brought you some tea,” she said.

“Mmm.”

“And good news,” she said, throwing sense to the wind. She was just so excited!

At that he looked over at her. The coolness of his expression might have stopped her weeks ago, but now… it did not.

“They’ve sprouted!” she said, smiling as sunnily as she felt, full to bursting with happiness that the seeds had germinated.

He said nothing.

It even looked like enough were peeking out of the ground that she would be able to choose the strongest plants to continue tending and weed the rest.

“…your wits?” he asked eventually.

“No, Ieyasu-sama. The hollyhocks,” she said patiently.

Oops. His face went positively glacial.

“I let you have the garden space,” he hissed, “to keep you busy.”

Her face fell.

“Don’t bother me about it again,” he said dismissively.

“Yes, Ieyasu-sama,” she murmured, eyes downcast.

“Are you going to pour the tea or not?”

* * *

_But of course she couldn’t keep her project to herself. She only read books on flowers and gardening as the plants grew through spring and early summer. She stayed up so late one night her head drooped from her neck like an old hollyhock flower—dammit, why wouldn’t this claim on her attention just proceed quietly without manifesting itself in his pleasure time?_

_And then one morning she brought breakfast, and there was a blooming hollyhock stem in a bud vase on the tray, and a smile on her face so soft and stupid he was tempted to flip the tray over._

_He only didn’t because breakfast smelled appetizing._

_He was irritated she said nothing about it. Almost impressed. Definitely irritated._

* * *

The happiness of the day the first flower stalks bloomed was marred by the arrival of a letter from Owari. The Lord of Fools wanted Tokugawa Ieyasu to come to Kiyosu. The letter did not say for what, or for how long.

He told her to stay in the room while he summoned his chief retainers to discuss things. She had nothing to add to the conversation, so she simply sat and listened. Fretted at her hands. Someone else from the kitchens came to take the breakfast tray away.

It was decided she would stay in Hamamatsu. She was certain Ieyasu wanted her to remain to keep her safe and out of trouble. She had mixed feelings about that.

She placed a single hollyhock bloom on his breakfast tray every day after that, liking the striking contrast of the gold petals against the dark wood. He never said a word about them. She saved the flowers and pressed them between heavy plates in the kitchen, collecting them in a drawer in her desk.

His last night in Hamamatsu, he clutched her to his body like he could not bear to let her go. She held him just as tightly.

* * *

_Before he left the following morning, he had Sakai assemble the household._

_“No one is to touch my library,” he announced to them all. His eyes sought her out. She was trying, the silly thing, but she looked like a sad child._

_“Except you,” he said, pointing at her._

_Her look of shock was vastly preferable to the sadness it replaced._

_“Clean it while I’m gone,” he said imperiously. “No one is to help you.”_

_Ohoho, the confusion—consternation? **Delicious** —on her face made his belly warm. _

_“Keep things orderly until I return,” he commanded them all._

_His household bowed to him, and her dark eyes, sad and soft, met his. He couldn’t say anything to her so he just rolled his own eyes. That made her smile a little. It really didn’t take much, did it?_

_He left, with only a few retainers. The quicker they could travel there, the quicker they could travel back._

* * *

A week with no news.

She couldn’t bear to go into his room or his library. She wished she had gone with them.

* * *

_Nobunaga was such a pompous windbag it was truly a miracle he was not swept up by every passing breeze. A miracle and a shame._

* * *

Finally, finally, letters from Kiyosu! And one addressed to her in handwriting that brought heat and happiness from her toes to her scalp.

**_Ieyasu!_ **

* * *

_Two more days. Two more days of cordial endurance of this circus. He would not kill anyone in two days._

_Probably._

_Two more days._

* * *

One of the cooks told her he was coming home within the week and she thrilled. And then she panicked.

She had not been able to make herself attend to his library. She hadn’t even been able to open the door. What kind of mess waited for her there? What if there was a food tray, now fuzzy? He would be furious!

So she excused herself from the kitchen. In her room, she tied her hair and sleeves back, and put on a clean apron.

She took a deep breath. Another. Opened the door to his library.

There were no food trays. The room was barely touched, just a few books stacked on the floor, and a few books and papers on the desk. She stepped inside, breathing out her relief. This would be the work of minutes. Had he just not wanted anyone else to touch his books?

Well, she would have his library tidied as it should be in time for his return. She set to it.

* * *

_Coming back took forever and he was not in a good mood as they finally saw Hamamatsu. He needed a bath and **silence**._

* * *

He was frowning dangerously, but as soon as he dismounted she launched herself at him anyway.

He went stiff in her arms. Put his own around her without any grace at all.

“So bored without me?” he finally crabbed into her hair.

“Terribly,” she admitted, rubbing her cheek into his shoulder. She felt him go even more rigid and stifled a laugh.

“I’m home,” he said tiredly, the roll of his eyes apparent in his sigh.

“Welcome home, milord,” she said.

* * *

_After he’d bathed, she brought him tea and ichigo daifuku. They were alone and he was exhausted, so he did not resist the desserts._

_She talked quietly, sparingly, about what had happened in his absence._

_When he sighed over the end of a cup of tea, she moved immediately to refill it._

_He stopped her._

_“And your task?” he asked, archly. Too tired to put much heat into the question._

_She **smirked** at him, the impudent wench._

_“I cleaned your library as you ordered, milord.”_

_She said no more. How dare she?!_

_He wouldn’t ask._

_He wouldn’t._

_“And?” It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Damn her! Damn him!_

_She smiled, looking awfully world-wise all of a sudden._

_“All was as you left it, I believe. I reshelved the few books out of order and straightened the papers on your desk. But I found something very curious beside them, Ieyasu-sama.”_

_She was pulling something delicately from her sleeve._

_He couldn’t look at her._

_He wouldn’t._

_He did.  
_

_When had he become **such** an idiot? Was everyone rubbing off on him?_

_She was holding the first little hollyhock stem out to him, presenting the dried flowers elegantly._

_He snatched it, but tried to be careful._

_“That is mine,” he said, placing it gently on the desk in his room._

_“I see that it is,” she said, her smile sticking in his heart like grit, like a caress._

_“How did you get it back?” she asked softly._

_“Ordered the cook to bring it to me,” he grumbled._

_“Thank you for keeping the flowers, Ieyasu-sama. I love you,” she said, the words everything he would never, ever tell her he wanted to hear._

_She said them over and over, long into their night together._

_He was home._

* * *

She loved him, and she told him so, since the saying it made them both so happy.

He was home.


End file.
